The players in my latest game all work at an excellent local tea house. It is a fantastic place for weaning yourself off sugary soft drinks, great conversation, and preparing to run RPG sessions.
There are many traditional teas there with interesting names and they struck on the idea of naming and/or theming their characters after some of them.

The PartyOsmanthus, Tiefling Warlock. Osmanthus is one of several teas made with flowers from the Osmanthus fragrans plant. Curled horns that blend in to curly hair, curvy and of somewhat ambiguous gender. Claims to have a restaurant back in the city.Dragonwell, Dragonborn Druid. The literal translation of Longjing, a pan-roasted green tea. Small for a dragonborn, anxious and obsessively brushes her teeth.Igom Ternin, Human Paladin. Named by way of acronym for Iron Goddess of Mercy, an oolong tea which is named for the Bodhisattva of Compassion. Rustic and earnest, carries a big axe.Cha’ti, Apeling Monk. Inspired by Golden Monkey, a black tea, as well as the legendary figure Sun Wukong. Metallic golden fur, except for his perfectly white tail. Tiny but fast as lightning.

After meeting the heroes of our nascent story during the character creation session, I decided to set the campaign in The Forgotten Realms. There are analogs for many medieval Asian cultures in the land of Kara-Tur. It is the far east of the same super-continent that Faerun is on. Between the two there is a fantasy Silk Road called The Golden Way. Adding Faerun’s tea trade as a feature of the story seemed like an organic way of reinforcing the tea house theme. We are using the Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition rules.

Our humble party headed south to Yester Hill this session, in search of the druid conclave and hopefully one of the mystic gems belonging to the Wizard of Wines. And as is so common with this group, they completely derailed a carefully planned encounter and then almost died. Thankfully they have a badass rogue with a very nasty crossbow.

Having dropped the fair Ireena off with Father Lucian at the church of St. Andral, our brave party set off west to find the Wizard of Wines. This particular session started off calm, gained a tinge of unsettling horror, and then delved into the comedic.

Episode 3: Shot in the Dark
In the small and dusty town of Groundhaul our crew members saunter through a pair of saloon doors. Immediately upon entering the drinking establishment three drunken locals, clearly miners by the dirt on their rugged clothes, pick a fight. They loudly complain about too many claim jumping outsiders around of late.

We open with The Carl hurtling towards the edge of Persephone’s gravity well so that it might begin a full burn towards its next destination. The crew, sans the Engineer and his wife, sit around the large table in the lounge, at the aft end of the ship. M is attempting to keep the details regarding the child in the crate quiet. However Dr Yuan-Qi has very strong feelings about protecting children from harm and demands answers. The private eye finally reveals that he is reuniting Zenith with her mother and knowing any more would put them all at great risk. Zenith’s reaction to M seemed to corroborate this, she was happy to see M and is currently resting in his cabin.

I have a backlog of Warhammer 40k posts to compose and post. For now how about a summary of a session of the Firefly RPG? This marks my return to running RPGs after three or four years off. The total player count is eight but only six were able to attend this first session, which was somewhat of a relief! I hope to post a follow up to this soon, with some relevant details of the crew members.

Episode 1: Where the F— is Valentine?
The episode opens late afternoon at the Eavesdown Docks on Persephone. The crew has just landed, eager to take care of their planet-side business.
M and Bobbi head to a local ship outfitters, Redworth Provisioners. They interact with the proprietor, one Hugh Bowery, and with Doctor Yuan-Qi’s generous accounts they have no problem securing their supplies.
Valentine heads off to attend to his own business. Including a nice (relatively) meal, a bath, and a shave and trim for his mandarin style goatee.
Grace retires to her quarters after successfully landing the ship, to entertain herself. With the ship on the ground and the engines shut off Graden takes the opportunity to tackle various inspection and maintenance tasks.
Joleen escorts the Doctor to obtain various biomedical supplies, to make sure the wealthy Core Worlder avoids trouble of the local variety.

As night begins to fall word has spread that there is a rich ship in the local berths. The local gang moves to collect their due.